Asthma Symptoms Are More Frequent in Overweight Children
Preschool-aged children who are overweight and have uncontrolled asthma experience more asthma exacerbations and symptom days compared with their normal weight counterparts, according to the findings of a recent study.
In their post-hoc analysis, the researchers analyzed data from 3 large multicenter trials that included children from 2 to 5 years of age with asthma who were either normal weight or overweight. Participants were randomly assigned to daily inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) therapy, intermittent ICS, or daily placebo.
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Among participants who did not received ICS, children who were overweight experienced more asthma symptom days (90.7 vs 53.2) and exacerbations (1.4 vs 0.8) compared with children who were normal weight.
Children who were overweight and received either daily or intermittent ICS therapy experienced similar exacerbations and number of asthma symptom days compared with those who were normal weight and received similar ICS treatment.
While daily ICS was associated with fewer annual asthma symptom days and exacerbations among children who were overweight compared with placebo, these protective effects were less apparent among children who were normal weight.
“In preschool children off controller therapy, OW is associated with greater asthma impairment and exacerbations,” the researchers concluded. “However, unlike older asthmatic patients, OW preschool children do not demonstrate reduced responsiveness to ICS therapy.”
—Melissa Weiss
Reference:
Lang JE, Fitzpatrick AM, Mauger DT, et al. Overweight/obesity status in preschool children associates with worse asthma but robust improvement on inhaled corticosteroids [published online December 19, 2017]. J Allergy Clin Immunol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaci.017.09.043.